I have been using the American flag bottle caps they sell at midwestsupplies for a long time. Yesterday I was at the home brew store in Lawrence and they had them. I bought a package. It said on the package that they were oxygen barrier caps. I never knew that. I got them home and compared them to the ones I have already and they are definitely the same thing. They just are not labeled as such when you buy them form midwestsupplies. Not that I am complaining as I have a stout and a porter that I want to age nearly a year to be ready this winter.

I have always liked these caps, not only for the really cool design, but also because they are a sturdier metal than the other caps I had been using. The home brew store was selling them for $3.75 for a bag of 144. I had been paying $4.99. Shipping is a wash as the home brew store is approx 30 miles away. It makes a nice pleasant get away road trip and there are to excellent breweries in Lawrence.

I recently tapped my first natural carbed keg. I used 3 oz sugar to 5 gallons of beer. It sat 6 weeks in my 68 degree man cave. First off it was over carbonated so I pulled on the relief valve and let it repressurize to my serving pressure. Now it pours good. But the head dissipates too quickly and there is no lacing. It tastes good and it tastes fully carbonated. All in all I think I will stick with force carbonating.

I redboxed this movie last weekend. I own the first 4. The critics weren't kind to this movie. They said the dialogue was, well, stupid. And they were right. But this movie really lit up my big plasma TV and put my surround sound through it's paces. And that is what I buy an action movie for. If the dialogue gets to ridiculous I will pop open a higher ABV beer. If I want intelligent thought provoking dialogue I will turn on the discovery channel.

I bought a really cheap ($20) pond pump and tried it out yesterday. I cooled my wort to 90F running garden hose water through my chiller, then changed it over to my pond pump. I had the pump in the bottom of my mash tun with the false bottom removed. I had approx a gallon of water in it and 6lbs of ice. It took 10 minutes to get the water from 90 to 70. The ice was gone but the water was still really cold. I dumped in a second 6lb bag of ice. 10 minutes later my wort was 62 degrees. My ground water was 72 so without the pump I never would have gotten the wort under 72 and it would have taken me a long time to get it to that temperature.

There was a beer fest put on by a group called "Go Topeka". They are a group that looks for ways to enhance the city's image, attract businesses, etc. I thought the admission was a little steep at $30. And for that you only got a plastic sampling cup. For $75 you got a souvenir glass and an extra hour. But other than that it was pretty well organized and well run. There were 39 breweries there. Half a dozen from Kansas that I had never heard of. One of them had a really good IPA called Cellermans. This place for each beer had a listing of the grain bill, hops used, and OG. I looked at the grain bill and told the guy it was very similar to the one I use for my IPAs. He then went into great detail about how to brew his IPA. He did no bittering additions and started putting Amarillo in at the 15 minute point (hop bursting) then he put Summit hops in after the whirl pool then later dry hopped with them. The stuff was really good. I took some pictures while I was there.

My favorite shirts

My favorite server

A cool hat for a photo

My favorite blue jeans

My favorite dress

Favorite dress runner up

as you can see the more beers I had the more my taste in photography changed